Teach Us How To Praise
Jun 4, 2019 3014
One day the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Teach us how to pray.” Jesus responded with what is commonly known as The Lord’s Prayer. I have come to see that The Lord’s Prayer not only teaches us how to pray, but also how to praise – how to be glad, how to hallow his mighty name.
Many times problems seem to overwhelm us to the point that we forget to count our blessings. If only we would push our problems aside and think about the blessings we have that we are not even aware of. When did you last go into prayer with an urgency to just hallow his name? When did you last spend time in praising God and thanking him for his unceasing grace?
When we take our time to praise God, we declare that he is bigger than our problems and worries. That affirmation itself boosts our faith. We can praise God even when we don’t feel blessed, and thank him despite the problems surrounding us, knowing that these problems are just but for a while.
Jesus, in The Lord’s Prayer, also petitions for the Kingdom of God to come. It makes a lot of sense, this chronology of petitions. Things will only be prefect when the Kingdom of God comes and invades the kingdom of this world to which we have been subjected by the virtue of our fallenness.
When we take our time to praise God, we declare that he is bigger than our problems and worries.
Jesus knew that we would need to petition about needs such as forgiveness for sin, and daily food. He knew that whenever we come into prayer we are pressed by our physical needs. But these needs don’t seem to define his prayer as they do ours. He begins by praising God, “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name” (Matthew 6:9; Luke 11:2).
His prayers were about God and not about him. He had surrendered himself to the will of God. He knew that the urgency was not on what to eat or wear. Jesus taught his disciples how to pray and also how to praise.
A genuine premeditated praise is what you need now. Try it and see the wonders it will do in your faith, and your psychology too. Remember that if there is urgency in prayer, it should be in the petition “Hallowed be thy name….” Spend some time on that petition, thanking God and lifting up his name for the blessing that you enjoy. Everything else is taken care of by this statement. When we affirm that God is great, then we take it easy on our petitions. Because a God whose name is hallowed will definitely take care of his children.
– Pr Bonifresh Muhollo
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